FLOWERS 59 



heads. In the forest or among the redwoods they are 

 startlingly beautiful. An acre of them, cloud-capped 

 Mount Hood, Baker or Rainier in the distance, 

 creates a picture hard to resist even if you are down 

 to your last film. The leaves are often two to ten 

 inches long and, unlike the Azalea, are usually ever- 

 green, while the Azalea are deciduous. 



Monkey Flowers (mimulus) in the Snapdragon 

 family are of the tiniest little dwarf flowers to high 

 bushes. Nothing could be more dainty than a 

 meadow carpeted with them. Each footstep may 

 crush a hundred but in an hour they have lifted 

 their colorful faces and in a day new ones take their 

 places. The movement of a cluster in a lapse-time 

 picture is astonishing by their exaggerated swaying 

 back and forth one opening, another dozing and 

 folding into a knot. Often in the higher Sierra 

 Mountains a bit of dry, gravelly soil will be covered 

 with the velvetlike blossoms the plant and its many 

 blossoms only a couple of inches high. The Yellow 

 Monkey Flower mimulus luteus grows in all sorts 

 of places a couple of feet high and flowers all sum- 

 mer long. The Scarlet Monkey favors the banks of 

 tiny mountain streams. Of all the family the pink 

 tall-growing ''Monkey" is the most delicately lovely, 

 growing in moist places, even in the more slow-mov- 

 ing, small mountain streams. 



